(While we here at All Fired Up in the Smoke have vowed to spend less time and effort on the 2014 mayoral race, that doesn’t mean we can’t provide space to those who do have that inclination. For example, our fully endorsed 2010 candidate for mayor of Toronto, Himy Syed.)

* * *

Toronto City Hall 8:15 a.m. January 2, 2014

Rob Ford walks past The Colin Vaughan Press Gallery, along a corridor it shares with Toronto’s Election and Lottery office.

Named for late City Hall Reporter, Colin Vaughan, who previously served as Alderman representing The Annex. His son, Adam, today represents Ward 20 Trinity-Spadina.

Three years before Toronto City Councillors began turning their backs each time Mayor Rob Ford rose to speak, Adam Vaughan was first to do so. He turned his back as Rob Ford was being sworn in; he faced The Public during Ford’s inauguration speech.

December 2010: turning your back on the Mayor appears petulant.

December 2013: it looks prescient.

Rob Ford and Adam Vaughan have been and remain each other’s true Council Nemeses.

* * *

Doug: Rob is first? “Did he bud?” (He actually did – couple in front of him.) Doug also jokes that Rob is waiting for a $200 loan from him.

Once inside, Cidade found Election staff setting up the rope line. Somehow, Bruce Baker beat Cidade to the Pole Position. Baker intended to be first to file for Ward 36 Councillor. No matter. Cidade being second in line would become 2014’s first Mayoral Candidate.

45 minutes later, Bruce Baker permitted Rob Ford to stand in front of him after Cidade and Gore each denied Ford a spot ahead of them.

Rob Ford began his Re-Election Campaign… by budding in line.

Filing Nomination Papers

Two pieces of ID, signatures, several gigabytes of video and still images, and $200.00 later… Rob Ford begins his Re-Election Campaign.

“Ford More Years…?” What does that even mean?

Before abandoning his first media scrum of the 2014 Toronto Election, leaving his City Councillor brother and just announced Campaign Manager Doug to wax damage control to Cameras, Mics, and BlackBerries… Rob Ford lied five times:

Declared Council’s best attendance record: he’s actually 15th worse out of 45; missing 1/6 of Council votes this term; Claimed tax increases under 1.75% for four years: rise was 2.5% in 2012 and 2% per last year; Claimed unemployment dropped from 11% upon assuming office to 7% today: actually it bumped up from 9.4% at end of 2010 to 9.8% in last quarter 2013; Claimed City “started spending like drunken sailors” after November when Council transferred numerous of his powers to the Deputy Mayor: thus far, the upcoming 2014 budget remains responsible; Repeated the fiction he alone saved “A Billion Dollars.”

This word was said to me by a former Ford Loyalist City Councillor who voted to strip away The Mayor’s power. This Councillor’s last straw was Ford’s admission of Drinking and Driving after repeated denials. Out of sheer curiosity the Councillor looked up “sociopath”. It described Rob Ford to a T.

I asked how voting against the Mayor felt?

“Dirty.”

Ford More Lies?

A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused – it is done to get one’s way). Sociopaths have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others. Sociopaths are often charming and charismatic, but they use their talented social skills in manipulative and self-centered ways.

What do John Edwards, Bob Barr, Rod Blagjevich, John Ensign, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, William Jefferson, William Jefferson Clinton, David Vitter, James McGreevy, Tom DeLay, Charles Rangel, Newt Gingrich, and David Paterson have in common?

Obviously, they’re all politicians who’ve been caught doing something illegal, unethical, mind-bogglingly self-destructive, or all of the above.

But what also binds them is that none of them seem to believe they really did anything wrong, in spite of vast evidence to the contrary. When they finally have no option but to appear contrite, their apologies feel stilted, scripted and anything but heartfelt.

If the Press Gallery continues attempting to keep proving Rob Ford wrong after each and every utterance that he is right; If challenger Mayoral Candidates’ ultimate street cred at the ballot box is that only they are uniquely “The Best NOT Rob Ford”; If the wider electorate doesn’t exercise its own power by voting For Something rather than Against Someone (Rob Ford); Then Election Day October 27 2014 will be reduced to being either a Referendum on Rob Ford or his Re-Election by an enabling “Ford Nation”.

What is Ford Nation? Why is Rob leading it?

Usually sociopaths hide themselves behind a pretense of being able to feel what the rest of us feel. Their very survival depends on being able to blend in, by imitating what they see around them, but cannot themselves feel, ever. Those most successful are those who con us best.

During 2010, the above was condensed into three words: Respect For Taxpayers.

For 2014, three syllables: Ford More Years.

It is said that Every Pharaoh has his Moses.

And Every Moses has his Nation.

If this election remains all but a Referendum on Rob Ford, as the first few hours of media attention and challenger candidates’
behaviour reveal, Ford Nation will Re-Elect their Moses.

But instead of Rob parting the Red Sea and delivering his people from Pharaoh, a re-elected Rob Ford will start from Sinai and
walk back to Egypt, taking Ford Nation, and the rest of us, along with him… For Four More Years.

Respect for Taxpayers. Been there. Done that. And got the Bobblehead to prove it. (Both of them.)

Time the Electorate stand up to the Sociopath Mayor by budding in the front of the line, getting ahead of the Press Gallery, turning their backs to the traditional media echo chambers with their narrative, and begin demanding a Post-Rob Ford Vision for the City Region of Toronto and How We Get There without mentioning nor referring to the incumbent mayor.